Religion Behind Bars

For several years, I taught general humanities courses – literature, philosophy, history – in a university program offered to inmates in a Texas state prison facility in Rosharon, Texas. Students in the prison earned bachelor or master degrees in humanities from University of Houston-Clear Lake.

Which is why I find interesting the recent data on religion among prison inmates published by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. The study relies on interviews with prison chaplains – not with inmates themselves – and reveals several major themes among inmates, including: the high rate of switching between religions, the common activity of proselytizing, the relatively high rate of religious extremism (defined mostly as religious/racial/ethnic/social intolerance and adherence to strict dogma) and a few other things.

Most interesting to me is the support chaplains overwhelmingly give to religious programs and services within the prison. They see such programs as central to the rehabilitation of inmates both during imprisonment as well as after release. This is not surprising – it’s their job after all, not only to serve the inmates but also to serve their particular religions (Christianity, Islam, etc) as they go about serving the inmates.

But, I suspect that the prison chaplains, as they implement their programs, have come to see something very similar to what I saw in the prison as I taught humanities courses. Both sets of programs and services offer something highly valuable and increasingly rare in prisons, namely, a space for the inmates to protect their humanity, or to begin to re-develop it in the wake of having lost it somehow.

The world inside a state prison is dangerous, harsh and dehumanizing. Violent and non-violent criminals often serve time alongside each other, which pushes the non-violent offenders to eventually become violent simply in order to survive the extreme power dynamics that undergird every aspect of prison social life. Time and space inside the prison are thoroughly institutionalized; every moment is scheduled and every space is monitored. The noise level can be deafening, and is nearly constant. Increasing numbers of inmates are in “ad-seg” – administrative segregation – which usually involves spending days, weeks or months alone in a single enclosed cell with little or no light for 23 hours a day, being released to an outdoor cage for 1 hour a day. Additionally, Texas state prisons are not air-conditioned. Temperatures inside the cellblocks routinely reach triple digits and stay in the 90s during summer evenings.

I remember my students filing into our classroom during late afternoon summer school sessions, dazed and exhausted from the heat. Many of them had worked in fields tending watermelons, squash, corn and soybeans all day. They were caked in talcum powder and calamine lotion from the shower dispensers. Usually, after the guard finished his count and all the students were seated, I closed the heavy metal door and instructed the students to simply “read and reflect” on the course materials for 15 minutes before we began the lecture and discussion. This was code for “put your heads down on the desk and rest.” The school building was the only building – other than the administrative offices – that was air-conditioned.

My students served time for robbery, rape, sexual assault of a child, murder and other crimes. They deserved to be there; they deserved punishment for their crimes against society. All of them, however, were destined for release back into the general population eventually.

Which raises the issue of their humanity. To commit their crimes, many of them had lost any sense of themselves or anyone else as human. Others, now sober after having committed their crimes under the influence of drug addiction, retained a broken sense of their own or others’ humanity. Regardless, I saw that as my students read Plato, Shakespeare, Milton and myriad other classic works of literature, philosophy and history, they were trying desperately to maintain some grip on what it means to be human, to find something “civilized” either inside or outside themselves in the midst of a deeply uncivilized prison environment.

I suspect the prison chaplains see the same thing, except with religion. Sure, some inmates partake of rehabilitation programs in a purely opportunistic way, hoping for perks and privileges. Many of them, however, are broken people. And they know they are broken. And they despair of what to do about it.

So, they take a philosophy class. Or attend religious services. Or even convert to a religion. Maybe somehow, in some way, something might work – to restore them, to fix them, to “save” them.

What would you have done with these people TruthSeeker? Ask yourself how many times God has forgiven you and then ask yourself how you cannot forgive someone else. “For Jesus has loved you, as you have loved him.” Do you love God TruthSeeker?

Do you feel sorry for productive members of society, tax payers, forced to support these criminals?

Every time a criminal is sentenced to incarceration it’s actually tax payers that is sentenced. Tax payers pay the police, the prosecutor, the judge, the jailer, the whole shebang. And when these people don’t do their job, as in the case of wrongful imprisonment, the tax payers pay $80,000 per year to the wrongfully imprisoned person. Of course it’s fashionable nowadays that tax payers pay for everything.

You should check out other countries prisons where it’s truly a punishment to go to prison.

Truthseeker, you seem to be pleased that prisons are more cruel in some other countries. Apparently cruelty saves money on taxes. I’d prefer a country that treats all people decently, even the prisoners.

@TS: In the course of my work I’ve examined a number of prison inmates. For them, medical care is limited, in large part due to medical understaffing and difficulty of access to specialty services. I believe that the prison physician (usually singular) is doing the best with what they have, but chronic pain, effects of old injuries or wounds, complications of diabetes – in short, all of the conditions that could benefit from time-intensive treatments – simply continue. Many of these patients are not particularly likable; others really seem to have developed inner strength and equanimity [usually from practicing faith]. Quite a number seem genuinely surprised and thankful that a physician spent more than a few minutes with them. TS, for you to suggest that this level of medical care – adequate for some basics but not much more – is like a vacation truly shows lack of experience with prison conditions. They are better in the U.S. than in most countries, but hardly desirable.

One flaw in the study is that they did not talk with the inmates and get their views.The other is they allowed Christian evangelicals, who make up the majority of our prison chaplains, to decide how good or bad other religions were, which means a biassed answer. I think other people would not tend to see other religions as being some short of threat to themselves.

But back to the idea of broken people. All healing depends on self healing. The chaplain can be of help, if he allows the inmate to find his own particular way. But if the chaplain ties to push one size fits all, then he can be destructive to the healing process. This can be the danger of allowing one denomination,or one groups of denominations to be in control of the chaplain department.

The religion that works for one inmate, may not work for the next, and as all of them will get out some day it is important that each find the religion that heals them as a person. It is important for us as a society as well. Right now 80% of the prisoners will fail and go back in, proving that the present way it is mostly failing. When we get it right we may see 80% succeed and 20% fail, but until then we can’t say the system is working.

TruthSeeker, where are you seeking the “truth”? You look at evrything as black and white. You look at everything on how much money it is going to cost you. You look at everything like someone is getting over on you and are not as deserving as you. In other words, you sound like all the radio talk show hosts that are on the air these days. Don’t you know that Jesus and God are not of this world. You think that they rate sins and only forgive those who have committed “small ones”? Turn off the radio and television and pick up the Bible. The answer to all of your questions are right in there.

I go into prisons several times a year as part of the faith-based Kairos program. The transformation we see amongst many of these men and women is real and profound. The recidivism rate drops dramatically as well. Texas is home to very effective and very active prison ministry programs.

I encourage you to visit a Kairos closing ceremony which is open to the public if your register in advance. There are several coming up soon including Eastham in a couple of weeks. Look up the Kairos of Texas web site.

To the person who thinks prison is like a vacation, it is not! It is a physically, emotionally, and spiritually difficult environment that can be incredibly dehumanizing. It ain’t what you see on television.

A guy walks up to a group of people crawling around under a street lamp. “What are you doing?” and one replies “we are looking for my lost contact lense”. “Where over here were you when you lost it?” “I was over there, but the light here is better for looking”

If one seeks truth, they will not find it until they look for it where it is, not always where they expect it or where it is easy to look. The only self-evident truths are logical tautologies, but bad assumptions appear to be self-evident truth to those who lack self-reflection or critical thinking. The first truth you must embrace is that almost everything you “know” is wrong.

Joe:
I find the notion that prison is entirely about spanking bad people to be supremely myopic. The intention of imprisonment must first and foremost be for the good of society. Limit criminal behavior and protect the people. Anyone who has ever been involved in dealing with discipline and behavior modification knows that negative reinforcement alone is highly ineffective. A chance to improve yourself in prison does not negate the punishment, but it is far more effective at getting the prisoner to seek a positive lifestyle to replace their negative lifestyle. We tend to make every conviction a life sentence. If you have been convicted, no jobs for you. Guess what? they go right back to prison. What other choice do they have, if we think that once a criminal, always a criminal? Both in and out of prison, we have to both encourage success in honest work and discourage crime, not just warehouse those who get caught.

Prisons have become the new recruiting mecca for radical Islamists. What better place to find truly hopeless souls with seemingly nothing to lose. This will be the breeding grounds for a wave of “homegrown” terrorists.

After reading this book yesterday, I think the reason for proliferation of religion in prison, especially given it’s dogmatic expressions, can be found in our need to be part of a group. When the other groups in prison are based on violence and race dynamics, a religious group offers a shield from that.

Here’s the book, I found it very interesting reading…
“The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion” by Jonathan Haidt.

prison reform is desperately needed and jobs for ex-offenders. what they want is your money! as for religion, seems to me the church doesn’t want these folk in its midst, nor their kin; they just lay on a huge guilt trip remind em their disqualified and show em the exit.

Having worked on the Darrington Unit at TDC, I can tell you it is not picnic spot. However, it is a far cry from prisons in other countries. I believe that we are spending too much to ‘rehabilitate’ convicts. We should not be providing all the amenities (Cable TV, educational classes, etc.) that cost money and have not been shown to improve the likelihood of reformation. Prison should not be a place of rest and reflection, but of penitence (penitentiary, anyone?). No one is in prison for singing to loudly in the church choir. And I have no symapthy for the hard work they do and the lack of air conditioning. Remember, there are prison guards working there too, and it is just as hot for them. I have to support Truthseeker, and say that the taxpayer is being punished everytime an inmate watches a cable TV.

Nowhere do I suggest prisons should be a place of “rest and reflection.” My point is that, unless we are willing as a society, to lock away all offenders – regardless of the crime – until they die, then it is in our own best interest as citizens and taxpayers to think seriously about what kind of “person” steps out of that prison back into free society after having served a sentence. This is not a humanitarian argument (although the result is also humanitarian). This is an economic, rational, self-interest argument.

Typically, things like gym equipment and television are used in prisons not as “amenities” per se, but as population management tools used for the sake of the safety and lives of the few guards charged with managing hundreds of violent offenders in a tight, non-air conditioned space. Unlike the guards, who go home every day to freedom, family and air-conditioning, the inmates live for years in that environment and can become like ticking time bombs if not provided means of release in some way. Physical work – like the farms, etc. – are also good ways to do this (and they help the prisons financially support themselves apart from taxes.